


Under Advisement

by ShaylaMorgansen



Category: Elm Stone Saga - Shayla Morgansen
Genre: Deleted Scene, Gen, haunted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 05:54:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21971017
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaylaMorgansen/pseuds/ShaylaMorgansen
Summary: Aristea recovers from a messy knock to the head and Renatus seethes about her increasing recklessness. 'Haunted'-era unused scene from The Elm Stone Saga.
Kudos: 7





	Under Advisement

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome, Magic Makers! You've accessed the inaugural 'deleted scene', exclusive to my email subscribers. More to come each month!
> 
> The following scene was one I wrote very early on (even before finishing Chosen) and intended for use in either Unbidden or Haunted, but neither story ever wove itself in the right direction to use it. I do often write such out-of-order scenes but this one, though it never fit, was one of the first times I really -got- the Aristea/Renatus bond. Their relationship trajectory was influenced by early writing like this scene. Enjoy, and click 'leave kudos' if you like it!

“Sit down,” Renatus said, unlocking his desk drawer. Tired and irritated, I shook my head. It made me a little dizzy to do so.

“No, thanks,” I replied. My tone was slightly frosty – I still hadn’t completely gotten over his earlier chastising comment, and was feeling somewhat resentful. Renatus glanced up at me.

“Sit,” he repeated. I said nothing as he shuffled through the drawer’s contents. Apparently he could not find what he was looking for, because he slammed it shut in frustration and strode towards me, ripping fabric from his sleeve. For a third time, he said, or rather, ordered, “Sit _down_ ,” and punctuated his words by grabbing my shoulder and shoving me downwards into a seat. The jolt served to further irritate me, and I glared at him. He ignored my look, and with his cold hands tipped my head and brushed my hair away from my injury to inspect it.

“It’s not that bad,” I insisted, although I knew I’d lost a bit of blood by now.

 _Don’t try to lie to me_ , Renatus responded silently. With more care and gentleness than could be expected of a man in such a frustrated mood, he lightly dabbed the cloth onto my scalp, careful not to touch the wound and hurt me further. _Emmanuelle is coming… she will see to this properly_.

I felt my anger ebbing away. I reminded myself that he was incapable of healing me, and also borderline phobic of blood. Tending to my injury was extremely confronting for him, but he was doing it anyway, and tightly controlling his emotional reaction. When I stopped focusing on my own irritation for just a moment, and probed at his presence tentatively through our connection, I felt how closed-off he was. How much he was trying not to show me.

I’d scared him.

And I was scaring him more now, without meaning to, my blood running rather more freely than anyone would like, matting my hair and staining my collar. I breathed through the last of my resentment with him and concentrated on what his view of the situation must be like. Within two controlled inhalations, I felt my awareness start to shift across our connection to see what he was seeing – through his eyes. I kind of expected him to block me but then I saw why he didn’t.

 _Happy with yourself?_ he asked dourly, a disembodied voice in my head to narrate the still-weird sensation of layered vision, seeing both through his eyes and my own at the same time. I could see my knees, parallel below my hanging head, but I could also see the back of my own skull, blood-smeared white hands trying to mop up the redness from my long wild hair. It definitely didn’t look great, though I felt confident that it looked worse than it really was. I mean, it hurt, no lie, but I'd hurt worse before. Head wounds always bleed a lot, and this wasn’t deep, just badly placed.

I, too, had been badly placed. I cringed, acknowledging that Renatus had every reason to be mad. This had happened because I was too quick to jump the gun, and though we’d walked out alive and with the intel we went for, it probably could have been gained without me risking my life like this. Reluctantly, I released my hold on his vision, the world of my knees immediately clearing up, and reached back to take the cloth of his sleeve from him. The wound was my fault, so if it needed pressure, it should be me holding it. Not Renatus, who could teleport, read minds, do magical battle, light bad guys on fire and probably blow up a field from a hundred metres away with just a thought, but who couldn’t stomach the sight of blood.

I knew I should apologise, but also that he wouldn’t like that. He could hear my thoughts anyway, and I knew when he immediately handed over the cloth to me and strode away, tacky red hands held delicately away from himself, that I was essentially forgiven. Like, more or less.

“How about _listen_ next time?” he suggested, still quite cool with me. Distantly, at the edge of my awareness, I felt Emmanuelle’s arrival on the grounds. She’d be here in thirty seconds, a couple of Displacements across the lawn and up to the hallway outside this office. I gingerly dabbed at the painful split in my scalp and considered what I was going to tell the Healer. She and Renatus could bicker and argue like no other pair I knew, but I also knew they’d be totally onside with each other on this occasion.

I was about to cop it.

“I’ll take that under advisement.” 


End file.
